Nokia is desperate because their business is failing. It may survive, but it may not. So now it's stated that it's doing what it didn't really bother to do in the past, which is to aggressively squeeze out profits from its patent portfolio. I have nothing against that. I think that patents are important, and that companies have the constitutional right to get paid for their work.
That said, Nokia smells of desperation. Without large cash infusions from Microsoft, they won't have enough money to continue coming out with new products soon. They are using up their cash at a high rate, and have two large bond issues coming near to payout. It's thought they may not be able to pay them.

Again I will ask you, why is it deseration when Nokia wants to protect a revenue flow? Regardless of their finanical status they have that right to try and protect it, you still haven't come up with a single reason why they shouldn't be.

Again I will ask you, why is it deseration when Nokia wants to protect a revenue flow? Regardless of their finanical status they have that right to try and protect it, you still haven't come up with a single reason why they shouldn't be.

You're not paying attention to what I wrote. I said they have a right to do that. But I also said that they hadn't bothered to do that in the past. It's just now, that their business is so precarious that they're doing it.

It isn't whether they should be doing it, it's the reason why they're are just now bothering.

External slots hold up absolutely fine! Previous phones I had had an internal sim slot/tray, whereas my current phone (Nokia N8) has push-in sideloading sim and microSD slots - both are covered with access flabs, neither fills up with lint or other unwanted debris. Apples arguements against the notch are a load of absolute rubbish - and to be honest, from the phones I've used with push-in sims versus tray loading, I've always found the push-in ones to be a far nicer mechanism.

Apple just doesn't like having anything that could even be remotely usable by other people in it's native form. Trying to force handset makers to use loading trays, which add up build costs as well as the footprint area in the phone, is pretty lame. The RIM/Motorola solution does pander to Apple's whims, but as Apple seems hellbent on forcing everyone to use loading trays the least they can do is accept the new design - but in a way that should make everyone happy. Apple keeps it's precious trays (otherwise Liquid Metal would have been a waste of a purchase) and RIM/Motorola/Nokia and others can decide whether to adopt the trays or keep with the push-in mechanism.

To be frank, if Apple has any issues with the modded design, then really they're just being spoilt brats who aren't happy unless they get everything completely their way. Nice to see others in the industry can play nice together and work on ideas for the greater good of everyone - time for Apple to grow up, stop being a spoilt brat, and keep it's toys in the pram.

I'm sure everyone will write this off as Apple-hating, but it's not. I'm just fed up of Apple 'succeeding' by using bully tactics, rather than being able to confidently rely on the strength of their own products.

THAT'S it? THAT'S what the whole debate boils down to? A notch in the plastic?!

At the time the battle first started there were lots of articles about the "technical superiority" of the RIM/Moto/Nokia design, but none of the articles actually stated what the "superiority" was. Now we know - a notch.

The superiority is offering a form factor that is suitable to EVERYONES current ways of utilising SIM cards. Instead Apple wants to propose a design that ONLY works with loading trays, as opposed to the Nokia/RIM/Moto offering which allows for tray loading and push-in functionality. Sim trays typically take up more floorspace than push-in sim designs. If Apple rejects this design, what reasonable excuse/reason would they have?

What you are missing with the concept of the push push SIM with external SIM cover is the overall design of the phone. Apple doesn't want, and rightfully so, to have the crappy, old-school, failure prone plastic cover that is connected by a rubber or synthetic living hinge. It's a bad design, forces a certain look to the phone overall and is the wrong way to think about it. Nokia was pissy about it because they have to posture so that they don't appear to be having to take design direction from Apple. My guess is that they'll probably copy Apple's tray anyway because design will end up dictating that.

Apple's tray in form and function sits flush to the case, is easy to open, easy to hold while placing a SIM in it and you would have to have fingers the size of sausages and be near-blind to lose the tray while swapping SIMs. In case you haven't noticed, Apple has been moving away from plastic anything with their phones, computers, etc. It's what makes the iPhone and iPad and MacBook Air / Pro's, iMac, Mac Pro, stand out from the crowd of cheap looking, cheap feeling, cheaply designed, throwaway products from the likes of RIM, Nokia, Samsung, etc.

You've just hit on one of the important reasons that having a nanosim that can have various loading options is necessary - Apple has the money to burn and the massive margins on each device to mean it's no concern using a more expensive loading mechanism on their phones...they only operate in the high end of the market, but that's the smallest of markets for device numbers.
If Apple have their way, they'll start destroying already low margins that exist for low end smarts and most dumbphones of other manufacturers by forcing them to adopt a costly manufacturing cost for the nanosim slots. Offering free use of IP is a sly response from Apple, almost acknowledging them forcing higher costs outside of their market sphere.

Add to that Apple getting outed re-registering associates to get extra ESTI votes, and it all sounds like bully boy tactics. Nokia's response might have been very blunt in their disapproval of Apple's methods, but it's pretty fair of them to blow the whistle.

You're not paying attention to what I wrote. I said they have a right to do that. But I also said that they hadn't bothered to do that in the past. It's just now, that their business is so precarious that they're doing it.
It isn't whether they should be doing it, it's the reason why they're are just now bothering.

What do you mean they haven't bothered in the past? How many times has someone tried to do this exact thing in the past?

The design Apple wants is identical to the past two SIM designs. Works fine in any format and doesn't require anyone else's patents.

Push-push is idiotic for SIM cards.

Not wanting proprietary crap unnecessarily forced into a standard. Nokia/RIM/Motorola want to protect themselves. THAT IS IT.

Hardly - I'd say it's only fair Nokia and the others want to protect their IP from Apple's proposal: throw out all existing patents, only accept ours but we'll let everyone use it for free. Apple has no concerns with wanting to wipe away all previous sim-related IPs for the nano sim because Apple as a whole has no real IP value in this area. If the situation were reversed, I very much doubt Apple would be so happy to have a whole batch of their IPs invalidated by one of their competitors - just look at the long, dragged out litigation against Samsung for 'the same form factor' as they try to patent a rectangle. Apple hasn't played nicely with everyone else when it's come to protecting their IP, so why should everyone else accept Apple attacking their IP? It's all a bit hypocritical really.

It's sad to think how much progress and development could be made in some key areas with more collaboration between the likes of Nokia, Samsung and Apple etc rather than the eternal cycling of law suits which has become almost the standard way of working with your competitors. No denying all those 3 (as well as other manufacturers) have plenty of tech they don't want to share - but non-differentiating tech like SIMs, phone charging (again, Apple refusing to back the main industry consensus to standardise charging with microUSB charging ports which Android, Nokia Belle and WP7 all support) and such like a middle ground should be reached - the Rim/Moto sim proposal fulfills this, the Apple proposal doesn't. The initial Nokia proposal went as far as to completely redesign the circuitry layout so that the sim reader could be a lot smaller and the nano sim itself was smaller than what Apple proposed - Apple rejected it as it wouldn't be backwards compatable with existing SIMs, meaning people could no longer use the sim adaptor cards which have been known to cause jamming of sim cards when used (e.g using microsim with adaptor for standard sim slot). Really it means that all the comments about Nokia trying to hold on to the past aren't exactly true, as it's been Apple that has pushed for the nano sim design to be very similar to the current design, which has led to the issues of ensuring that the designs don't get jammed in older sim readers - Nokia presented a solution that would avoid this, Apple slammed it down and insisted on incremental change from what went before.